It’s not unusual these days for instrumentalists, especially string players, to play period and modern instruments or to engage in the practice of free improvisation. However, it is rare for an ensemble to combine the three disciplines during a single performance. On Saturday, November 4 at Zygote Press, Time Canvas — violinist Chiara Fasani Stauffer, guitarist and theorbist Joshua Stauffer, and cellist Roland Gjernes — did exactly that during their stunning 70-minute program titled “Silence, Space & Sound.”

One of the newer ensembles to emerge in the Northeast Ohio music scene is Time Canvas — Chiara Fasani Stauffer, violin, Joshua Stauffer, guitar and theorbo, and Roland Gjernes, cello — a group that brings together Baroque and contemporary repertoire, along with free improvisation.

This weekend they will present their most recent project, “Silence, Space & Sound,” on Friday, November 3 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City and on Saturday, November 4 at Zygote Press. Both performances begin at 8:00 pm. The program includes modern works by Piazzolla and Bogdanovic, as well as a world premiere by Jeremy Allen, alongside Baroque works by Böddecker, Mealli, and Stradella. Click here to reserve a seat.

“The project is designed to emulate an art installation,” Joshua Stauffer said during a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

The 2015 edition of NEOSonicFest will end with a bang when FiveOne Experimental Orchestra (51XO) presents an innovative program on Saturday, March 28 at 8:00 pm at Zygote Press. Along with other surprises, the evening will include music by Marc Mellits, David Crowell, and Ted Hearne as well as a 51XO Zygote Jam.

“We wanted to play someplace downtown for the Festival, and when I checked out Zygote Press I was completely captivated by some of the equipment that they have,” 51XO’s artistic director John HC Thompson explained during a telephone conversation. “They have a lot of antiquated printing equipment and other toys we can play with like hoses, vacuum cleaners and giant pieces of metal. We’ve been having fun figuring out how to incorporate all these things into the show.”

The first half of the evening will take place in Zygote’s intimate gallery space with the orchestra set up in the center. The audience will be invited to sit or stand in a circle around the musicians. [Read more…]

Re•Views

“I am sitting in a room,” intones the composer Alvin Lucier, announcing the title of the composition he is recording before clarifying: “…different from the one you are sitting in now.” As stay-at-home orders arose in March 2020, music-lovers on social media noted that Lucier’s half century-old audio piece could serve as an unlikely quarantine anthem.

Enter the soprano Stephanie Lamprea, last heard in Cleveland during the 2019 Re:Sound Festival, making some of the lockdown era’s most vivid new music through an approach that inverts everything that defines Lucier’s piece — except, of course, for the isolation.

A new CD by Christa Rakich, who is currently Visiting Professor of Organ at the Oberlin Conservatory, gives a nod in two directions. As its title announces, it’s an homage to her former teacher and colleague, the late Yuko Hayashi, longtime professor at the New England Conservatory and curator of Boston’s Old West Church Organ Series. It’s also the first recording to be made of Richards, Fowkes & Co.’s Opus 16 instrument, built in 2008 for Goodson Chapel of the Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. [Read on…]

On their recent, self-titled debut album, the Cleveland-based duo Patchwork — Noa Even and Stephen Klunk — present five commissioned works that draw on free jazz, metal, progressive rock, and the avant-garde. Released on New Focus Records, the album takes you to a sonic world never dreamed possible from a saxophone and drum set duo. As we have come to expect from Even and Klunk, the five works are an exploration of extended techniques. More importantly, their performances are bewitching — ensemble playing at its best.

Hailed by the New York Times as “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018,” Wet Ink Ensemble has lived up to this acclaim once again with their recent release Glossolalia/Lines on Black. The album takes its name from the two extended works by Wet Ink members Alex Mincek (saxophone) and Sam Pluta (electronics). The remainder of the septet includes Eric Wubbels (piano), Erin Lesser (flutes), Ian Antonio (percussion), Josh Modney (violin), and Kate Soper (voice). [Read on…]

Croatian-born pianist Martina Filjak, now living in Berlin, has released her latest album, Light and Darkness, featuring music by Franz Liszt — plus an epilogue by Arvo Pärt. The disc confirms once again all the special technical and interpretive qualities that won her the gold medal at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2009. [Read on…]